We can blame Nintendo for that.

Nintendo Entertainment System: first console for the average adult video gamer.

The average gamer today was born in 1982 (give or take). Allowing for a few years of infancy and toddler-hood, most of us “average gamers” were first exposed to video games in the mid-late eighties, when the Nintendo Entertainment System was dominant. That system was released in North America 1985, sold over 60 million units, and included classics like Tetris(1989), Super Mario Bros. (1985?), and The Legend of Zelda (1987).

Fun fact: the release date for Super Mario Bros. in North America is not known with certainty, even by Nintendo. It was released for the Famicom in Japan on September 13, 1985.

Nintendo, then, had a large influence on those of us adult gamers who never grew out of the pastime. One need only look to the nostalgia-fueled hype created by the release of the NES Classic for evidence of how present a simple video game console was during our childhoods.

The college years.

Freshman and Sophomore years of college saw the release of the next generation of consoles: Nintendo Gamecube in 2001, Microsoft XBox (also 2001), and Sony’s Playstation 2 (2000). While still including the classics, this generation targeted a distinctly grown-up audience, with first person shooters such as Halo: Combat Evolved, Metal Gear Solid, and other similarly violent (and increasingly realistic) games. Those of us tired of Mario could still find excitement dodging alien gunfire and lobbing flash-bangs at enemy troops.

You can pick up on the theme now…

With each iterative generation, manufacturers have made sure to target the same group of children–now grown up–that the industry so successfully captured in the mid-1980s. As we became adults, manufacturers even began adding distinctly adult functionality to their consoles. The Playstation 2 played DVD movies. Microsoft and Sony consoles now play Blu-Ray movies, stream Netflix and Hulu, and even include parental control features so that we can lock out our own children from our adults-only games.

So, at 35 years of age, I am the “average video gamer” in the eyes of the industry. Below is my current video game library, which does not include games I have traded in or downloaded digitally. You will see a mix of adults-only games, but you will also notice that I have not been able to give up my childhood classics such as Mario and Zelda. I do not have children–those are my games for my own enjoyment.

My current collection of grown-up and childhood video games.

And I wonder, how long can the industry keep us captive? If you had asked me in high school what I thought of a 35 year old video gamer, the words “loser” or even “predator” might have come to mind. As of now, I have no intention of retiring my consoles. In ten years, will we all be 45-year old gamers? What kind of games does a 45-year old play?